


Remember your friends (As they rest in the bogs)

by a-bigail (spacepuck)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), anyway i've joined the spite train except... loki still isn't quite alive, not very plot-heavy tbh i just wanted them to talk again, steve rogers makes a brief appearance, thor dreams and talks to loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-28 21:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18764551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacepuck/pseuds/a-bigail
Summary: "Had you given them a chance, you may have enjoyed yourself here.""Possibly." He conceded too easily, Thor noticed. A small, rare smile hung on his brother’s face, though, as he spoke. "But not for its people. It would have been a waste to grow attached, would it not? Stay for a moment, five or ten years time, only to return and find that generations have passed. That everything that was known has been changed and forgotten.""I thought you enjoyed change. You had always complained of Asgard's stagnancy."Loki paused. Belatedly, Thor wondered if he, too, still felt the wound Ragnarok had left behind – he had hoped his brother, in this strange state of nothingness, wouldn't still hurt over such things. But, he supposed that was a luxury meant for the dead.--Thor dreams of the meadow. There, he speaks with his brother.





	Remember your friends (As they rest in the bogs)

**Author's Note:**

> This was a story I had started back in February and intended to abandon, but _Endgame_ fueled me with enough spite to push through and finish it. Because I need these two to talk again, damn it. 
> 
> Links at the end of each part are to songs. 
> 
> -Abby

"It's a shame Father was alone here."

Despite the lack of breeze, the tall grasses and stubby asphodels swayed slow on the cliffside. Grey clouds roiled some ways out above the sea, disturbing the light on the waters. The grass was bright and dewy.

This was familiar to Thor.

He didn't feel the humidity or the wind that brushed over the meadow. The scent of rain and the tang of the sea were beyond his senses, but only just so, in a way that caused a small ache in the back of his throat as he tried to place what was missing. He toed the foxtails at his feet, wondering if he would feel the violet buds brush his hand if he were to touch them – a thought he had every time he came there, but never acted on. He looked down at them against his boot, flexing his hands idly at his sides, wondering.

There was only the sound of the sea lapping against the rocks far below. The sea and, eventually, the dampened footfalls of Loki stepping forward to join him near the cliff's edge, and his voice as he responded.

“It was what he wished,” he said. Thor looked at him, but his brother kept his gaze steady on the greyed horizon. “Perhaps because the quiet gave him time to reflect.”

Loki slid his hands into the pockets of his slacks. Like Odin, he always appeared in his more Earthly outfits there, and though the dark suit was familiar, it made Thor's stomach clench. _As though he's dressed in mourning._

He forced the thought away before it could lead him too far astray. He was here for a reason, and that wasn’t to ask his brother if he knew about the Decimation. A wasteful question, because he knew the answer, and because he knew his brother. Mourning for strangers, no matter the number, wasn’t something that came to him. Even the fall of the Nine Realms, all the life inside them, wouldn’t shake him terribly. Didn’t shake him terribly.

At least, that’s what Thor believed there, in the field. _I’ll think on it more when I wake,_ he thought, knowing he wouldn’t remember.

It was rare for Loki to visit him in these dreams. Though the visions had become frequent in the past year, Thor would often find himself in the meadow alone, waiting, wondering when his father would join him, only to wake just as alone as he had dreamt. The Allfather would join him most other times, but as Thor began to seek comfort rather than advice, as Earth continued on after Thanos’ destruction, as he continued on without his people, his home, the man's words became lost in the noise of the sea. Thor would wake with the fading sound of waves crashing deep in his ears, slowly replaced by the silence of Earth's night, feeling very much without.

He often found himself wishing Frigga would visit, but he only received her words delivered through Odin. The comfort was not quite the same.

The grasses bent forward as a breeze rolled through. Loki brushed a stray, dark curl behind his ear.

"You're back again," he said.

“I don't will it, you know.”

“Doubtful.”

“I don't,” Thor insisted. “These dreams, they come to me on their own.”

Loki huffed shortly through his nose, his head twitching in a small shake. “That's not how it works, brother. You come seeking something. Answers, presumably.”

“I…” He stopped. Looked away from him and back out to sea. His hands flexed at his sides. “I suppose. But Father, he has heard my questions, and he cannot answer them.”

“Well, of course not. He may be the Allfather, but he does not know all. This…situation is likely beyond even him.”

“But not you?”

“Hm.”

Loki shifted his stance. In his peripherals, Thor saw how closely he toed the edge of the cliff, and though he knew he would not fall, an old, primordial fear locked him up. He crossed his arms to keep himself from reaching out, keeping his gaze steady on a wave as it traveled to shore.

"Loki," he started, "if you have any answers, or insights, you must tell me."

"I mustn't do anything."

" _Loki._ "

"You keep returning here, asking the same questions and getting the same results. Have you considered that it's not the fault of myself, or Odin, that we cannot give you the answers you seek–"

"I was not faulting _anyone_ –"

"–when you are not asking the right questions?"

Thor huffed. Loki, to his credit, managed to keep his voice level, though as Thor finally looked at him again, he noticed his shoulders drawing tense.

"I'm not sure what questions I must ask"

"Then, I don't have answers."

Thor glared. His brother sighed and dipped his chin.

"I am not sure what Odin has told you," he said, "or hasn't. But, as usual, you preoccupy yourself with the larger picture. You seek straightforward answers that don't exist. There isn't a simple solution."

“But there _is_ a solution?”

“Of course.”

“And you know what it is?”

Loki paused. Drew in a breath, then let it go. He closed his hands at his sides and opened them again, repeating the motion once more before stilling. Then, as Thor thought he would suddenly, reluctantly, reveal an answer, Loki turned on his heel and stalked away from the edge.

Thor started. He turned to follow, trying to overpower his brother’s strides but falling short some steps. Suddenly, he feared that he had ruined yet another meeting. That if he should blink again Loki would be gone, and he would be left alone there to contemplate where he had gone wrong. _Again_.

“Loki, wait.”

He didn’t. But he didn’t disappear, either, so Thor trailed after, repeating his plea with some force and getting the expected silence in response.

It was some meters until Loki finally stilled, where, Thor found, he stopped at a patch of dark, scorched land marring the field. It looked as though it should have been smouldering, but there was no heat. Thor held a hand over it for a moment, and felt nothing but a strange prickle on his palm.

“What is this?” he asked. “I’ve never seen it here before.”

“I believe you have.”

Thor started to protest, but Loki crouched slowly, careful to keep from stepping into the dead grass, curled and blackened. Then, he dipped his hand into the soil and pulled a small amount of it away from the Earth; it pooled like ink in his cupped fingers. Thor squinted down at it.

“What is this?” he asked again. As Loki stood, the strange soil was brought nearer to Thor, and he felt the odd sensation prickle him more strongly. His eye twitched as it stung his cheek.

“This,” Loki said, “is what Hela left behind here when she arrived.”

Thor peered at it, watching as the excess seeped between Loki’s fingers. It left behind the blackened clumps of soil and a thin, green-tinged oily sheen. When he looked back at the spot that his sister created, its center seemed to absorb all the light that touched it.

“How can it be here, if this place is not...not _really_ as it is on Midgard?” he asked.

Loki let the dirt slide from his hand back into the Earth, where it sank and became uniform with the inky spot once more. The residue on his hand disappeared with a small twitch of his wrist.

“This place is merely a reflection, Thor. As happens there, happens here.” Loki looked at him. “You didn’t think this place was _static,_ did you?”

There was that ugly taunting tone, paired with the beginnings of a smirk. Thor knew it was meant to goad him, but it created an uncomfortable pang deep in his chest instead.

“I haven’t noticed it before,” he said again. “Though Father…he had never guided me here.”

His brother returned his gaze to the dark patch before them. The ghost of the smirk fell away and was replaced with the pinching of his brows.

“He probably sees this as something to hide – an ugly truth scarring his sacred place. The old man has a talent for hiding the uglier things, doesn’t he.”

“You kept it from me, too, brother,” Thor reminded.

“Well, _I_ didn’t know that you were unaware of it. It seems like a fairly obvious thing, that Hela would have left something behind.”  

“And what is it, exactly? Poison?”

Loki shook his head, lips pressed thin.

“A patch of death itself. When she stepped out of Odin’s cell… She _had_ been waiting well over two thousand years to use her power again. I suppose it was only natural for her to unleash it the moment she set foot.”

Thor tried to remember that moment, when Hela first appeared before them, but could only recall her eased destruction of Mjolnir, followed by Loki’s distressed ( _cowardly_ , he had thought at the time) call for Heimdall to abandon her on Earth. It seemed long ago.

“So a piece of her still lingers here – on Midgard – even after Ragnarok?”

“Death continues with or without a goddess, brother.” Loki pressed down on the divide with the toe of his shoe, forcing some of the dark oil to pool. “She’s rotted the land down to its core.”

Thor swallowed. He watched the smoke rise from the dead ground in small billows, noticed how it twisted as though to touch them. He waved an outstretched hand to waft it away, only to witness it curl around his fingers a moment before returning to hover above the thick ink of the center.

“This must be contained,” he said, wary of breathing in too deeply. “We can’t let anyone get near this.”

“Mm. Well, _you_ can’t let anyone get near it. I’m afraid I can do nothing about it from here.” Loki tapped his foot against the fresh grass that bordered the dark, letting the oily pool sink back. “Though, I’m not sure that containing it is possible.”

“Why not?”

“It’s been spreading. Slowly at first, but lately it’s been gaining in speed. Give it another century, and it just might...”

Loki paused. He then clasped his hands behind him and turned away from Thor to follow the dark patch’s line, taking slow and careful steps within the healthy grasses. Thor noticed, then, how Hela’s poison ate the land discriminately – concave where it ate at the nearest bundles of white kantlyng, convex where the low-lying reinrose spread untouched to the far reaches of the field. It ate at the mosses, the tall foxtails and moist soils. The thumbnail cuckooflowers went unharmed.

“Don’t be fooled by the shape of it,” Loki said, stepping over a half-eaten thick of moss. “It used to only eat the grass.”

Thor trailed behind him, some distance away as he took care to not step in the dark land.

“Hela’s...poison, then, it is learning. Learning that it can feed on more than what it started with.”

Ahead of him, Loki’s shoulders jumped, possibly with a laugh that didn’t reach Thor.

“Yes,” he said, “it seems that way.”

“But… I still don’t understand. Why would Hela leave behind something so slow? Surely she had the power to kill this place in an instant.”

“Why, indeed.”

The prickling sensation the darkness gave him made him uneasy, and, agitated, he took to clenching his hands as he followed his brother, who seemed quiet but unbothered. Relaxed, even, with his hands back in his pockets, strides slow.

Thor couldn’t understand it. He picked up his pace, stepping away from the dark line further into the normalcy of the field to avoid the strange smoke that rose and grasped.

When he caught up to his brother, he muttered, “I don’t see how _this_ is a solution.”

“I never said it was,” Loki said.

Thor felt his face set. He stopped walking, and as Loki continued without him, he stared hard into the back of his head.

“Then _what_ are we doing?”

That made Loki stop. Thor watched his brother’s shoulders drop, his head tilt forward in a sigh. Taking another step forward, Thor said,

“Do you not understand what is happening, Loki? Have you been leading me astray this whole time?”

“No,” Loki responded, adamant yet subdued. “Though this wasn’t something you sought out, it would be unwise to ignore it, as, it seems, Odin has.” He pressed on the dark line again and let to oil rise around his toe. “It _would_ be wise, however, to trust me here.”

“I’ll trust you when you give me answers. This,” Thor said, gesturing to the black pool with a harsh, swooping arm, “is _not_ an answer.”

Finally, Loki turned to face him again. The quiet indifference – something Thor had imagined was a side effect of this place – had been quickly replaced with tense contempt. His shoulders drew up, and he took a few long, dangerous steps towards Thor.

“ _I,_ ” he spat, “am informing _you_ of this dangerous circumstance that has slipped under _your_ radar. Don’t tell _me_ that–”

“This is _not_ what I came here for Loki.” Thor stood his ground, glaring at the face that glared wildly back. It was almost as if he had snapped, but something held him back. “I am trying to–”

“–this isn’t of _any_ importance in your yearly _jaunt_ on Midgard–”

“–figure out this, this _Thanos_ situation, I am here for answers–”

“–that this couldn’t _possibly_ have ramifications–”

“–that I _know_ you have, and yet–”

“–for your ridiculous  _team_ and the well-being of the _Nine Realms_ –”

“–you sidetrack, connive, and I do not know your _intentions,_ but–”

“–which, by the way, is now _your_ sole responsibility, Odin save _all of us_ –”

“–I _trust_ that you have the answers, I _know_ you do, and yet–”

“–if you thinned out your _skull_ maybe then you could see, but as usual–”

“–you refuse to impart them to me!”

“–you refuse to _listen!_ ”

Thor snapped his mouth shut, clenching his teeth as Loki stared at him, as if daring him to say anything more. As he let out a huff, he looked away from Loki, who then turned his back to him again. In the midst of their arguing, the meadow’s vibrance had dimmed; thick storm clouds swam overhead. And as Thor let his fists loosen, heavy rain began to fall on his shoulders.

There was only the sound of the sudden shower as it fell to the Earth, as it panged and died against Hela’s poison. Thor watched the darkness eat the rain, though it did not spread to catch the drops that fed the field.

“Loki,” he started. He let out a thick breath. “I’m sorry.”

[But when he looked to where he brother stood, he was met with the empty meadow.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fghk49e0Yis)

–

It was some months before he saw Loki again.

They stood at the cliff’s edge, the same storm brewing over the ocean, the waves crashing against the rocks far below. As his brother stood beside him, face set, hands clasped behind him, Thor wondered if their argument had finally settled after all. In its aftermath, Thor had thought about Loki’s sudden anger, wondering if his brother was _truly_ worried about Midgard, or if he was simply angered because he felt ignored. Most things pointed to the latter, though some small part of him hoped for some truth in the former.

The cool indifference he wore seemed to suggest that the burn hadn’t quite eased.

Thor toed the grasses. Everything seemed much the same, aside from the withered asphodels.

Silence hung between them. It would continue to until Thor spoke, he knew, but he struggled to place the words. In the months since their last meeting, he had returned to the cliff on Midgard, and saw the patch of death clawing through the ground himself. He watched it spread and creep through the cliffside over the course of a week. When he neared it, a heat came off of it that confused his skin, aching cold despite the smoulder.

He tried what he could to remove it, to placate it, but Loki had been correct – the poison dug down to the Earth’s very core. Like the soft spot of an apple.

Thor could do little more than leave it and worry about it. With what little remained of Earth, he wondered blandly if Hela, unknowingly, would deliver its final blow from far beyond, wherever she now sat – possibly back in her domain, possibly still within Surtur’s flames. It would be a slower death than Thanos snapping his fingers, but it would be death all the same.

He took in a breath. He wished he could taste the tang of the sea.

“Brother,” he started, “I… apologize, for our last meeting. I didn’t intend for it to go that way.”

Loki remained quiet. Thor crossed his arms to keep himself from openly fidgeting with his hands.   

“I acted too harshly. I should have tried to understand what you were saying.”

Still, nothing, aside from a short flicker as Loki looked from the horizon down to the waves crashing against the rocks. Thor tried not to stare at him, and instead dropped his gaze down to his brother's shoes. He let out a withering sigh.

“I… I admit that I don’t know what to do about what Hela left behind. And I still can’t see how it ties to everything else, or if it does at all. But I should thank you, at least, for bringing it to my attention.”

Loki’s brows perked ever so slightly at that. There was another stretch of silence between them, which Thor willed himself not to become agitated by. _I will not grovel at your feet for you to speak to me,_ he thought _._

Finally, his brother spoke.

“Have you come with questions?” he asked.

“I suppose I must.”

Loki nodded, and at last turned his head to address Thor. He met his eye, still cool and unforgiving, and yet they urged him.

“Go on, then,” he said.

Thor kicked his toes gently into the grass. Looked back out to sea, rolled his shoulders idly.

“Is mother all right?”

When he was met with silence, he elaborated, saying, “Father… he has not met with me since I last spoke with you. I usually ask him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have an answer.”

Thor looked at him to find that he had returned his gaze seaward. Something heavy gripped his chest, then, fearing the worst. “What?”

“The last time I saw Frigga,” Loki said, “was the same day you last saw her, brother.”

 _He never made it to Valhalla._ The thought struck him suddenly, but he swallowed down the unease. Forced himself to speak, to ask rather than assume.

“Father, then? How is he?”

“I cannot answer that, Thor.”

“Why not?” Thor felt his heart rile, and he dropped his hands to his sides, clenching them as he stepped nearer. Loki didn’t divert his gaze. “Mother and Father, they’re in Valhalla, are they not?”

“They must be–”

“And you aren’t?”

“I’m not.”

Thor grasped within himself, trying to find purchase. “Fólkvangr, then?” he asked. He wished it to be casual, but his voice wavered somewhat. He so hoped that it were true, that his brother had been sent to either the great hall or the great field, that he had departed only to find some peace.

But Loki shook his head. “No,” he said. “Not there, either.”

“Then you’re…”

Thor made a noise as though to continue speaking, but he couldn’t will himself to finish his words. To say _then you’re in Hel, brother?_ as though it were just that, a question, rather than a horrible sentence...

He felt superstitious, then, as though asking would make it true. So he shook his head, branching himself around it instead.

“I refuse to believe it,” he said. Loki scoffed.

“You can refuse all you want, brother, but the truth still stands that I am neither in Valhalla nor Fólkvangr.”

He said it too easily, Thor thought. He took another step closer to him, meanwhile sweeping an arm out to gesture at the sea, the meadow.

“I refuse to believe it,” he said again, “that you would be able to come here while trapped... _there_.”

 _Even though he comes so infrequently_ , he reminded himself. _Does he have to be careful, then, to come here? Are the paths more treacherous?_

He tried and failed to quell these thoughts. As he dropped his arm back to his side, Loki merely watched him, as though to ask, _are you quite done?_ He turned to stare angrily at the horizon.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Loki said.

“Do not play games. You know exactly what I mean.”

“No,” Loki pressed, saying his words carefully, “I do not.”

Thor paused. Then, he returned his eyes back to his brother, who seemed, if not bored, then exasperated. A breeze came by, and though he did not feel it, he watched the tall grasses bend, his brother squint as some strands of hair fell across his face.

“Loki,” he started. He paused on the words before letting them fall out. “Are you in Hel, then?”

“No.” Loki reached up to brush the hair behind his ear, and he seemed somewhat at ease. “I’m not.”

The relief, though it was sweet and overpowering, was closely followed by confusion. Thor let out a heavy breath, sent a string of _thank-you’s_ to his father, and let the heaviness leave him before he asked,

“If you are not in any of those places, then where are you?”

“Ah.” Loki gave a wry smile. “Now that _is_ a question.”

He stepped away from the cliff’s edge, then, and turned to face the meadow. He walked into it – not with the stalking strides as he had before, but rather slowly. Thor took it as an invitation to walk alongside him, and he, too, turned away from the waters.

“You do not know,” Thor said. It wasn’t posed as a question, but Loki hummed shortly in response anyway. “Are you trapped here?”

“Here, no. I come when it seems appropriate.”

 _When you_ deem  _it appropriate,_ Thor bit to himself, thinking of the number of nights he had spent in the meadow alone. Loki continued.

“When I leave, however, I do not return anywhere. Not to Valhalla, or Hel. There is simply nothing until I’m called here.”

Thor stared at him. Though Loki sounded oddly at ease, he saw the tightness drawing between his brows and around his mouth.

“So… you are not resting,” he said.

“I suppose not.”

“But if you are not resting, you are not dead.”

“Perhaps.”

“Then you are…”

“Alive?” Loki finished. When Thor gave a silent affirmative, he stopped walking. They were just shy of the black pool; Thor noticed it had indeed grown somewhat since he saw it on Midgard. Loki breathed shortly out of his nose. “Maybe in some sense.”

They stood together, contemplative for a drawn moment. Something uncomfortable settled in Thor, as, on the one hand, his brother seemed very much alive, but on the other, it seemed as though he would never truly return. _Trapped_ , he thought, _in absolute nothingness._

He wondered if it was worse than being sent to Hel.

Loki released a small hum. “I believe,” he said, “some Midgardians call this  _limbo._ ”

The realm between life and death. Thor recalled a conversation with Steve, then, when the man had explained to him his past of being frozen, some night some years ago when a different, much smaller threat loomed over their heads.

“I wasn’t alive, and I wasn’t dead,” he had said, “I was just trapped between doing nothing and being nothing. Stuck in limbo.” He had shrugged, downturned his eyes in thought, and Thor remembered thinking that the man had weighed this conversation in his mind long before he knew him. “God didn’t want me yet, I guess. But it seemed life didn’t want me, either. It just wasn’t ready to take me back right away.”

He had no comforting words for his friend then, and he found himself in a similar, worse situation now, unable to find the words for his brother.

Loki looked on at the creeping darkness their sister had left behind. [Thor looked on at him, the words lost in the quiet lingering between.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2nxQm1wezU&t=09)

–

"Had you given them a chance, you may have enjoyed yourself here."

"Possibly." He conceded too easily, Thor noticed. A small, rare smile hung on his brother’s face, though, as he spoke. "But not for its people. It would have been a waste to grow attached, would it not? Stay for a moment, five or ten years time, only to return and find that generations have passed. That everything that was known has been changed and forgotten."

"I thought you enjoyed change. You had always complained of Asgard's stagnancy."

Loki paused. Belatedly, Thor wondered if he, too, still felt the wound Ragnarok had left behind – he had hoped his brother, in this strange state of nothingness, wouldn't still hurt over such things. But, he supposed that was a luxury meant for the dead.

When the moment passed, Loki dipped his chin and let out a breathy laugh.

"You had always been too attached, brother."

"What do you mean?"

Loki half-turned to wave a lazy hand across the meadow behind them.

"To Midgard," he said. He returned his hand to his side. "Father had always said you were strangely attracted to this realm. I certainly never saw the appeal, least not to its people."

Thor pressed his lips together. He looked out over the cliff from his spot on the long rock they sat on, where he leaned his elbows lazily on his knees. He touched the grass, the withered wildflowers, and weaved them clumsily around his fingers, unable to feel them.

"They're...a fascinating race," he said finally.

"They perish too quickly to truly appreciate, I find." Thor felt his jaw set, but Loki spoke further before he could retaliate. "Men you had known as a boy, children you played with – they're unknowns now. Buried under the mountains for all we know, without so much as a proper burial to show for it. And the bodies that are found, buried under peat, or in frozen tombs, are given new names, names they will die again with. Put on display as mere artifacts in museums.”

Loki shifted to lean back on his hands. He stretched out his legs somewhat, enough that they entered Thor’s peripherals.

"And the people now will never know them,” he continued, nonchalant. “They awe at how human they still look, but can't fathom the thought that they were ever truly like them. The same race, but a mere few hundred years dismantles their sense of history entirely."

He went mum then. After a moment, Thor huffed a laugh.

"I didn't know you went to museums."

"Briefly. They're charming, if not woefully incomplete."

"You misunderstand them, Loki. They don't act this way on purpose." Thor looked at him, but Loki didn't spare him a glance in return. "They're a good people. They care about their history, they just..."

He lost the words. Loki crossed his legs at his ankles.

"Don't hurt yourself,” Loki said. “I understand perfectly; I just cannot relate to them.”

“It’s not too difficult.”

“You find it easy because they’re simple.” It was meant as an insult, Thor thought, though the tone wasn’t there. “Besides,” he said, “you forget my past deeds too quickly, brother.”

“Some of that wasn’t _you_ ,” Thor said. “And the things that were… You’ve changed since those days.”

“Changing my ways doesn’t erase my hand in their history.” Loki’s mouth had formed a hard line, though it seemed more contemplative than anything. “It doesn’t much matter now, though, does it? I won’t be returning there. Or anywhere, I don’t believe.”

Thor fell quiet at that. He had realized, in these past meetings with Loki, that he had only returned back to wakefulness with more problems than he had sought out, and no answers to bolster him in his endeavors to right the wrongs done to Earth. Hela’s poison continued to rot the cliffside, slow and sure, eating away at the various flora the land provided as its death dug through the earth. Loki, though not gone entirely, seemed sure that he would be unable to leave this state of incomplete death without a body or place to return to. And though he seemed at peace with this, it was only to the naked eye; Thor knew it troubled him that this place was his only respite.

When he glanced down at his hands, he saw that had torn some of the grass twined between his fingers out of the ground. The roots dangled limp from his grasp.

“I think I could bring you back,” he muttered.

“If you're going to suggest reviving me, I can tell you now it won't work.”

“But if I were to find you?” He let that possibility sink into Loki for a moment, but his brother only rolled his eyes. “Surely there's someone out there who would know how–”

“There would be quite the price to pay.”

“I would pay it.”

Loki looked sharply at him, and Thor stared back. He straightened himself from his position hunched over his knees.

“Don’t be foolish,” Loki said.

“Is it foolish to want to bring you back? To take you out of whatever state you’re in?”

“It’s  _foolish_ ,” Loki said, tightening his glare, “to jump into things that would incur such a debt, when you already seem to be struggling with what you have.”

“But it’s not as though you’re, you’re _gone_.” Thor turned himself to face his brother better. “It would not be as though they’re taking you from rest.”

“And you think they would mind that difference? Between death and this?”

“It would be unfair–”

“Those who dabble in reviving the dead don’t often think much of fairness, Thor.”

Thor let out a seething huff and turned back to face the cliffside. Loki fell quiet, too, but returned himself to calm. With a soft _tsk_ , he said, “Glaring will get you nowhere.”

“I refuse to give up on you.”

“I know that.”

“Then why do you shut it down so easily?” Thor returned his hand to the grass, now tearing out the blades deliberately. “You don’t _like_ it here, or wherever you are. Nothingness doesn’t suit you.”

Loki re-crossed his legs with a sigh.“You cannot focus on me right now. Believe me, I’m flattered, but your prioritization skills still prove to be lacking.”

“They’re not.”

“You are no closer to undoing Thanos’ destruction, or even bringing _one_ planet back to some semblance of peace.” Loki held up a hand and stuck out a finger, and then another as he continued, “You haven’t the slightest idea what to do about this problem Hela has left behind. And, I’m sure, you’ve neglected to bring it up with your team, because you see it as either something you can do yourself, you don’t want to burden them, or both.”

He held up three fingers, looking outward to the sky where the storm clouds drew nearer. Thor shook his head.

“Those things… I can’t even think of how to repair them. But _this_ , I at least have some chance. Some direction.”

“Hm.” Loki put his hand down. “It’s not much of a direction. You’d have to find my body, which at this point could be anywhere. It may even be broken up by some wayward asteroids. Maybe it was destroyed alongside the _Statesman_.”

Thor tensed at that. He wondered if Loki was, in fact, still somewhat alive when Thanos demolished their ship, if he knew so only because he witnessed it himself before finally succumbing to his wounds. As Loki spoke, he gave no indication of his version of the truth.

“If that’s the case, then you would have to find a different vessel able to contain me, which is just as unlikely. Even if you _do_ manage either of those things, you would then have to find this ‘someone’ who is both skilled enough and willing to revive me – someone who, for all we know, may not exist, or may have been part of the unlucky half.”

Thor knew all this, and his heart sank for it. Still, he shook his head. “I will do that, then.”

His brother shot him a pointed look. “There’s still the matter of price, you know.”

“You don’t know that there would be a price involved.”

Loki laughed something small and bitter. “Oh, there’s _always_ a price. Don’t bet on there not being one.” He straightened himself, drawing his legs to a bent position. “We shouldn’t be speaking of hypotheticals.”

“It’s not,” Thor insisted, but Loki scoffed and waved a hand at him. “It’s _not_. I’ll bring you back. I’ll fix what Hela has left behind, and I’ll fix what Thanos has done. There has to be a way to right all of this.”

“And if things are exactly as they should be?”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m not saying it because I _want_ it to be true. I would love not to be trapped here, strung between life and death, but it’s worth wondering if the world is just playing out as it should.”

“Then _I’m_ doing what I should be doing to bring it back to normal.”

“Perhaps. Or maybe you’re disrupting it.”

“And _you_ would be against disruption?”

Loki smiled slightly at that. _Point taken,_  it said, though Thor knew he wouldn’t indulge him. Instead, his brother stared at the horizon, pausing to think, before drawing in a long breath.

“I cannot stop you from doing stupid things,” he said, “as usual. But, my advice is to be patient. And be vigilant. Things will reveal themselves in time.”

“I do not _have_ time.”

“You do. You just always want to rush things.”

Thor scoffed. The waves below them slapped against the cliffside harsh and loud as the storm clouds neared ever closer. As a wind picked up, Loki drew himself to his feet.

“I believe it’s time to go.”

“What?” Thor looked up at him, then stood, saying, “But we’ve–”

“Been talking for some time,” Loki finished. He stuck his hands in his pockets. “I should let you go now.”

He turned to step further into the field, where he stepped over the creeping tendrils of black learning to eat the reinrose. Thor, however, stepped behind him and struck out an arm, grasping his brother’s shoulder.

“Wait,” he said. “I have one more question.”

Loki stopped. His silence granted permission.

“If I’m to bring you back, somehow, before I am able to resolve everything else… Can I trust that you’ll help us?”

Silence. Then, as the first drops of rain fell on the grass, his brother let out a small laugh.

“You, perhaps. The rest of them… we’ll have to see.”

Thor let go of his shoulder. He watched Loki take some steps further, staring at his back and willing himself not to blink. But, eventually, the rain crept up on him and hit his lashes, and when his vision turned blurry and forced him to close his eyes, his brother, predictably, vanished.

He was left alone in the raining meadow. There, he stood, unable to feel the wetness of the weather or the flooding of the grass, thinking of his brother’s words. Be patient. Be vigilant.

[When he woke, it was to the sound of thunder passing overhead.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyAUbh89NM8)


End file.
